PODCAST | Stories of Us

Stories of Us is an Anthropology based podcast that looks at folklore, myths, legends, and misunderstood pieces of history.

This podcast attempts to unearth what truths lie underneath the stories of all of these myths and legends, and what leads to the creation of these stories in the first place.

By looking at people and what they do, what they make, what they believe in, and how they interact with the world, this Podcast tells the story of myths and legends across the world from perspectives you might not have heard from before.

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INDIGENOUS CONTENT

ABOUT US

One of the core principles of this podcast is to include indigenous perspective into the stories we tell, as well as in all of the research we do for each episode. When you look at folklore, myth, and legend around the world, the stories can be traced back thousands of years, sometimes even before writing. In most cases, these stories are based in the stories of Indigenous people. Whether Indigenous to Canada like the Lheidli T'enneh or the Cree, or Indigenous to Britain like the Celts, Stories of Us values the knowledge of elders and the perspectives of the people who were there from the very beginning.

Stories of Us works to incorporate the Indigenous perspective in all parts of the podcast, from research to the final product. This means that we make connections within Indigenous communities, especially when the topic of the episode deals with Indigenous content, to make sure that we are being respectful and telling the stories right.

To us, Indigenous knowledge, oral story telling traditions, and methodologies are key in making a good podcast.

After all, isn't that what a podcast is? An oral story?

THE RESEARCH

It's Community Based

The research and writing for every episode is focused on respecting the communities and people involved. This means that our research makes a point to collaborate and communicate with many different people from the communities focused on in each episode, and that their opinions and stories matter.

It's Anthropological

At it's core, Stories of Us is an Anthropology podcast, which means each episode is as unbiased as possible, and looks at each topic from many different perspectives. The podcast doesn't try to take a side or say that something is right or wrong; instead the podcast just lays out the facts and lets you come up with your own conclusions about these topics.

It's Accurate

Each episode is researched to the moon and back, making sure that everything we tell you is backed up with fact. All of our stories incorporate a combination of pop-culture resources and academic journals to support our findings, which you can find by looking at our transcripts. All of this being said, research is always changing and new studies are being done that change narratives and shift what we know. Our research team will try to be as up to date as possible and will rely and on the most recent studies published.

It's Peer-Reviewed

Each episode also goes through an academic peer-review process, which involves academics, scholarly professionals, and community members reading and critiquing each episode before it is recorded an aired. This makes sure that all of the information we are providing you is ethical, accurate, and well founded!

Want to read the transcripts of each episode?

Want to see all of the citations, articles, journals and other sources we used for our research?

Check out the Archives!

THE HOST

You probably know Courtney best as the voice of Stories of Us, but Courtney is also the creator of the Podcast and takes the lead in research, writing, graphic design, and production.

Courtney is a soon-to-be anthropologist, completing her bachelors degree in Anthropology with minors in English and First Nations Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia. She is passionate about community and culture, and strives to make important, meaningful connections whenever, and wherever, she can.

While right now Courtney is spending most of her time finishing her degree, she likes to go exploring both out in the world, and in books.

Courtney Hayhurst

THE TEAM

Melanie Belwood

Adam Harasimiuk

Hailey Smith

This small group of people all work together to make Courtney's dream come true. Melanie, Adam, and Hailey spend their time on research, editing, writing help, and, most importantly, keeping Courtney sane.

With degrees and certifications like History, Education, English, and Archival studies, this team ensures that all the material produced is high quality, accurate, and fun!

WHAT'S ANTHROPOLOGY?

Anthropology is the study of human beings, and anthropologists are people who study people. We spend our time figuring out what makes us human and why.

Anthropology is a discipline just like History, Psychology, and Chemistry. What makes Anthropology unique is that at its core, it is interdisciplinary.

This means that Anthropology works with other disciplines to make stuff happen. Anthropologists work with Geologists, Biologists, Historians, and many other professionals while doing work. In anthropology, team-work makes the dream work!

Anthrop is an Ancient Greek word that means "human"

Ology is a Greek suffix that means "to study"

Put together, you get a word that means

"to study humans".

One of the mains goals of anthropology is to be unbiased and holistic. This means that anthropologists try not to take a side, and instead look at things objectively.

Anthropologists spend a lot of time thinking outside the box, and looking at things from many different perspectives. We try to question the way we look at things in a certain way, and why we do things the way we do. Anthropologists look at biology, culture, language, artifacts, and the way people interact to each other and the world to figure out what makes us all human.

In Anthropology, there are four different subfields that anthropologists work in:

Archaeology

Archaeology is probably the most well known piece of anthropology, especially in pop culture and media. Does Indiana Jones ring a bell?

Archeologists study the objects that people make, and look at dirt, animals and plant remains to date artifacts and try and come up with explanations for why they were made in the first place.

Biological

Biological Anthropology is the study of human biology, past and present.

Biological anthropologists look at everything from studying primates and evolution to looking at healthcare systems in different countries and cultures to look at the similarities and differences between people between cultures, countries, and times.

Cultural

Cultural Anthropology looks at how people live in the world and what we do to try and make sense of it all.

Cultural Anthropologists look at everything in culture like faith, laws, fashion, and cuisine to look at the differences and similarities between cultures around the world.

Linguistic

Linguistic Anthropology is the study of language and communication. Linguistic Anthropologists look at how languages develop, who speak them, where, and why.

This means Linguistic Anthropologists study everything from accents to dialects, including things like decoding ancient hieroglyphics and studying body language.